Column: Replay in Big 12 has run its course

Daniel Thomas goes plunging into the end zone, fumbling the ball as he goes. He recovers it in the end zone. Either way, Wildcats touchdown!

But wait ...

And wait ...

And wait ...

There is a review (for some reason). Of course there is. There is always a review. Sometime in mid-2009, the Big 12 changed its motto.

The Big 12 conference, where the previous play is always under review.

Ran into Big 12 supervisor of officials Walt Anderson after a showing of "Wicked" in Kansas City a while back. Asked him what he thought.

"The previous play," he said, "is under review."

I love the idea of instant replay, the same way I love the idea of Bud Select 55, nonfat ice cream and "The Marriage Ref."

It's just that it's kind of ruining football games.

The Big 12 instituted instant replay to much applause in 2005. Officials reviewed 96 plays that season, overturning 33 of them (34 percent). That ratio bottomed out last season, when officials overturned just 19 percent of the 148 calls reviewed. Through three weeks, the Big 12 is on pace to see a record 168 plays reviewed this season, and on pace to overturn 29 percent of them.

Those are the objective numbers. Here is my subjective opinion:

The cost of instant replay in the Big 12 has finally outweighed the benefit. Too often, we get stoppages in play to review plays that are barely controversial or, in cases like Thomas', inconsequential.

Part of the reason for this is the way the Big 12's replay system functions. In the press box is a booth containing several monitors and some replay officials. They technically review every play, the idea being that in the time between the end of one play and the next snap, they will be able to determine if the play requires further review. If they think it does, they alert the referee and we all go through the replay song-and-dance we're all so familiar with.

Again, this sound great in theory.It maximizes the chance that every play will be called correctly. But hydrogen-burning cars sound great in theory, too. But in practice, they're just impractical.

I am not sure I want to eliminate instant replay. There are too many examples of egregiously bad calls that would determine the outcomes of games for me to wish away technology that make games more fair. But the current system is ineffective.

DeAndre Brown dives for the end zone against Kansas and fumbles the ball into it. It rolls out of bounds. The ball is either Southern Miss' at the 1, or Kansas' at the 20. KU coach Turner Gill waits on the sideline. And he waits. And he waits. He has to decide whether to call his last timeout to give the replay booth a longer look, or assume he was wrong about the play. He doesn't call it, there is no review, Southern Miss snaps the ball and scores a touchdown.

"They were reviewing everything else," Gill says afterward. "I thought that should have been a review."

You can blame Gill for not taking that timeout, but he shouldn't be put in that position. They were reviewing everything else. And when you question everything, you believe nothing.